


Word Soup

by Evren Rambunctious (DHume)



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DHume/pseuds/Evren%20Rambunctious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each chapter is a fill for the skulduggery pleasant kink meme, with pairings, ratings, warning, spoiler level and the prompts posted at the beginning of each new piece. Ongoing, multipairing fics at a thousand or so words a pop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 37, the extended director's cut

**"Valkyrie invites Skulduggery into her bedroom, but instead of letting him spend all night sitting on the floor, decides her bed is (if barely) big enough for both of them.**

**Anything from nothing actually happening to lots of things happening is fine; I'd appreciate some delicious awkwardness and/or banter."**

 

[Rating: T+, warnings none, Valduggery, KOTW canon compliant]

 

 

He went to the wall opposite the bed, and slid down until he was sitting. With the light off, all she could see was the outline of his hat. 

Valkyrie had to laugh.

"You look ridiculous."

"I'm sorry?"

"Sitting there, you look like - like a rag doll. Or a puppet with the strings cut."

Skulduggery snorted. "I rather thought that was the point."

"Well, never let it be said that I can't admit when I'm wrong. Come on, there's room in the bed."

She could practically hear the amused silence. 

"I don't think it'll be a very good fit. But it would be useful in case you shunted unconsciously, so... Damn your logic. You've outsmarted me."

He sounded like he was playing along and Valkyrie felt a flush creep up to her cheeks in the dark, and so she simply sunk lower under the covers as Skulduggery got up and crossed the room. She turned away from him until he had taken his shoes and jacket and hat off, placed them neatly beside the bed, and settled himself and then she turned to face the too-low ceiling again. If he could see the tail end of her blush, he didn't mention it. 

There was long pause. Skulduggery uncrossed his arms. 

"Do you want to sleep, or..." he said so softly it made her jump. 

"Or what?"

He coughed. 

"I'm not sure what sleepovers or all-nighters are meant to entail other than midnight feasts, swearing at overdue assignments and consuming alcohol in large amounts, so-"

"Ah, okay, okay. Um, people tend to talk and things. Play card games? Braid each other's hair?" She laughed under her breath. "I don't really know either. Sad, right?"

There was another pause, shorter this time. Valkyrie was still nearly submerged by her sheet, so she inched upwards until her neck was free. She couldn't believe Skulduggery had actually done what she'd suggested. 

Skulduggery cocked his head, looked straight back at her. "Is there something wrong with my skull?"

"What? No."

"You keep stealing little glances at me, but they're short, like you want to look away but can't resist. If it were something funny you'd tell me, but it's as if there's something stopping you mentioning it."

He sagged, until he wasn't sitting up any more. 

"There's a spider in my eye socket, isn't there. It's been itchy for ages."

she laughed quietly again. "I think you're overestimating how tactful I am. If there was a spider, I'd have made fun."

"I think it's impossible not to overestimate your tact."

She yanked his arm sharply in mock annoyance. 

"Rude."

"Well, so are you."

"But I get away with it, because of my good looks and charm."

"That you do. Or at least, with me."

"Wait, what?"

Skulduggery pulled his arm from Valkyrie's grip and used it to pull himself back up, until he was sitting stiffly against the headboard. 

Valkyrie noticed that she'd been holding his arm and felt stupid, like a child wanting attention or affection. 

No, definitely attention. For her brilliant self. Right. God, she was tired, she wasn't thinking straight-

"What do you mean? Am I... Charming?"

Above her, she could see a torso so still, for a second she thought her parents had walked in. What would that have been like? A strange person in her bed, or at least, a prop skeleton- her dad would probably think she was missing Fletcher. Or worse, he'd recognise Skulduggery in the dark, not notice his skull, and-

Why had she even asked him to sit with her? She made to turn away, but a hand on her arm stopped her. 

"I, I haven't offended you, have I? I didn't think your ego was anything less than impervious to anything I do or say, by now." 

Skulduggery sounded hesitant. Skulduggery, who always knew what to do or say even when he didn't. 

"No, you didn't. I guess I just - I guess it was a surprising thing to say."

"Do you want me to go and sit down? It's late, you know, and as much as I hate to be the one to go telling you to get some rest, when you're tired you're cranky and you take it out on the Bentley, so."

Valkyrie didn't say anything. 

"Are you even still awake?" his voice dropped even further, quieter than a murmur. "Hello?"

Valkyrie stayed silent and he went to get up, all business once again, but this time Valkyrie's arm snaked back up and gripped his shoulder and she sat up and looked straight at him, searching for the shadows of his sockets on the dark. He seemed upset and it was _her fault_ , and she wanted him to see the look in her eyes and know... Something. 

"Can I have a hug?" she asked, so quietly he must have read her lips. 

After a few beats, finally he nodded. "There's not much room. Your bed here is tiny. You're going to have to turn around."

She turned away on her side this time, but she could hear the tell-tale whisper of one of Ghastly's suits against the normal sheet fabric and then a cool arm was encircling her waist, tickling her stomach. 

"Tch! Cold. Are you all right, or about to fall off my tiny bed?"

"All right," came the voice behind her. "But it's a finite amount of space. Can I move my other arm?"

"Oh, uh, what? Yeah, sure."

This time, she moved her arms to accommodate his. She crossed her arms around on top ohms his hands, pulled them and linked them together. 

"Better." The silence was much more comfortable. She could sleep like this. She could stay forever like this. 

She moved backwards the tiniest bit, until she was completely enfolded in Skulduggery's hug. He didn't seem cold any more. 

He felt herself drifting off, until Skulduggery tightened his arms and made a noise halfway between a cough and a laugh. 

"I do believe we seem to be snuggling, Miss Cain."

Valkyrie yawned, and cracked her eyes open. "Excellent deduction, Mr. Pleasant."

Skulduggery carefully moved one arm away , kept holding her tightly. Valkyrie barely noticed, she was half asleep. She just tightened her own arms back in answer, as if they were speaking in code. She'd almost forgotten about his arm, was almost fully asleep, when she felt bony fingers gently, ever so gently, combing her hair. 

\--

Valkyrie was completely asleep, he could tell. Her breathing had deepened and her arms had slackened. Skulduggery didn't mind. He just kept holding her, kept stroking her hair, kept feeling guilty. When he was sure Valkyrie was deep in sleep, he bent his head to the top of hers, stopped stroking, replaced his arm around her side. 

"What are we doing to do, us two," he whispered as he pressed his jaw to her skull. 


	2. Chapter 2

**"Aromantic!Hansard Kray. Hansard Kray is sick of tired of people like Valkyrie Cain and her partner assuming that him being uninterested in boys means he _must_  like girls. He's sick of having his father bring home pretty young things for him, and taking them himself when he refuses.  
He just wants someone-anyone- to consider that maybe, just maybe, he doesn't want anyone."**

**[Rating: T+, warnings none, gen, KOTW canon compliant]**

 

The first girl is called Juliet, and she specialises in Miniaturising things. She caters for all the grand parties Hansard and his father are embarrassed at.   
Hansard can tell she's here for the family's reputation; sees the light in her greedy eyes equally when she looks at him or her father. So he smiles, politely, and is every inch the perfect gentlemen because he doesn't have to be anything else, and he lets her out the back door when the next morning she stumbles out of her father's suite of rooms clutching the same pair of heels.   
It's the same for a while. Strings of then, each more beautiful or powerful or cunning than the last, and he views it as just another chore - entertain them, be the appetiser before the main course. It's fine. It's all fine.   
Most of his friends are jealous of him, ask if they can be invited to these little soirees too? Once, he's giving the latest young thing a tour of the business (Piper) buildings and sees a group of them, girls and boys, with jealousy in their eyes. He was supposed to meet them for a party, but business came first. It always does.   
  
His father doesn't seem to mind and it goes on like this, until he turns eighteenthe, and the  women who turn up at the door (frosted pink shade #3, fire engine red, virginal coral; he's given up remembering their names) start being pushier, acting like the sun only shines for Hansard. He's not sure if they're being paid or if their interest is genuine, but he hates them and his father for it all the same.   
Why can't they just leave him alone?   
  
But he doesn't say that, because he's a coward and he hides behind selective blindness and feigned ignorance, behind a timed misstep and a calculated trip. The truth is, he's scared what his father will say when he finds out he's not normal, especially after the debacle with the church service.   
  
Instead he lets one girl (is Rose her name or the colour of her dress?) kiss him, only once, and then regrets it more than anything. The glass of wine (Rose, again) thrown in his face after his too-brave, too-careless "No," when she cajoles him up toward one of the numerous bedrooms is the best part of the night.   
  
Hansard is preoccupied with moving the latest batch of drunken businessmen from dining to drawing room, setting out ashtrays and dimming lights, when the newest test walks in. Hansard almost doesn't notice him, in the suit.   
His hair is black and his wide, wild eyes are too and he's skinnier and madder than anyone Hansard has ever known, and for a whole second Hansard tries to memorise the lines of his sculpted face and wishes very hard that it interests him.   
His voice, when it comes out, is a drawl.   
"Kray? Your father sent me to tell you to put an extra place for cards."  
He steps closer, and laughs when he notices Hansard stiffen defensively.   
"I'm not going to  _eat_  you, know," but his eyes flicker up and down Hansard's body in the low light, as if he'd very much like to.   
Hansard flees. At least he doesn't need to add an extra place for cards, that way.   
  
When the Ball comes and he has to go, Hansard steels himself for a night of embarrassment. What will it be this time? His father throwing up everywhere? A string of stiff, prearranged conversations between bored girls and uncool Hansard, too stuck up to talk to them? At least he has his friends back, his 'fail' love life enough to stop them being jealous enough to hate him. If he can only survive this night..

It's worse than he expects. Valkyrie Cain, the infamous girl, walks in with a dress black and clinging as the darkness, her partner hovering at his side. For a moment he even thinks his father's matchmaking instincts will outweigh his hatred of her, and when it doesn't she still persists in talking to him. Why? Why him? Hansard can name a dozen people looking at her more hungrily than he ever would, her Detective including, but she only seems to have eyes for him and his father is being awful -   
  
The one good thing that comes out of this is Hansard's dance card. It's blessedly, gloriously empty, if a little splattered with wine and his father's sick. After hanging up his best suit and putting his father to bed he cleans it and slots it into the drawer beside his bed, a happy memento for once.   
  
A few months later his father starts bringing round less and less pretty young things and Hansard foolishly let's himself get used to it. He buries himself in the work his father refuses to do and computerises all the records, cleans all the offices, checks all the expenses. It's not avoiding your circle of peers in their never-ending mating dances if you can blame it on family, with a grimace and a shrug and an inner smug smile.   
When a woman walks into his new office and sits down, with glasses and a pencil skirt so crisply retro he's not surprised she's older, he  laughs bitterly.   
"What, he's trying something new today, is he? He's given up on girls and boys so now he's appealing to a latent Oedipus complex?"  
She smiles, and smooths her skirt.   
"I'm here to talk about some shipping. But I gather the heavy hints Mr. Dagan dropped regarding his son's need of a little more than conversation were unwanted? Suits me."  
Hansard doesn't believe his ears.   
"He hasn't paid you?"  
"Well, not yet, but I am hoping that once I've sent this invoice through for the fuel there will be payment forthcoming, yes."  
She laughs quietly. "You seem frazzled. Do you get this a lot?"  
"A surprising amount," he allows. Hansard still hasn't ruled out a more insidious approach, until:  
"My parents were the same. I gather he hasn't tried the trip-to-Amsterdam-and-house-arrest-in-a-whorehouse yet?"  
At this Hansard smiles for the first time. "That happened to you?"  
The woman nods. "Oh, yes. Pardon me, I'm being dreadfully unprofessional. Now, about the cost breakdowns-"  
  
To this strange woman this has been a bit of business banter, no more, but Hansard finally feels like he's found a kindred spirit, of sorts. Later that evening he thanks his father warmly for introducing them, and he doesn't even mind the deep chuckle or the lecherous look.   
It doesn't matter. Soon he'll be living away, or succeeding his father and already he's become so invaluable that his father can't take his job away. It'll all be fine.


	3. Chapter 3

**"Skulduggery has always been a man. The only problem is, not everybody agrees with him."**

**(Trans!fic because every fandom loves its gender stuff.)**

**[Rating: T+, warnings: may be difficult to read for transmasculine people, description of forensics and possible body horror; gen, DB canon compliant]**

**  
**

(There is a reason that Skulduggery hasn't reclaimed his crest - it's because it belongs to second oldest daughter of a noble family, not a son. The treachery is written in the shape of the crest's shield for all to see, the colours and the tints, argent and sable.)  
  
Skeletons, they say, are all the same. Beauty is skin deep. You can't tell someone's character when the skin is stripped from their bones - the curve of a breast, the hard planes of a sculpted arm, dark skin, pale freckled skin, crooked features or symmetrical ones. Death is the great leveller.  
They're wrong.  
Once, you slipped into a small museum, on the hunt for some magical artefact or other,  behind a tour of small children in bright jumpers being shepherded around its rooms. They came to a glass case of bent-backed bone cavemen and the guide said, "Can anyone tell me what the difference between a boy's and a girl's skeleton is?"  
Skeletons, the guide explains to the wall-eyed students, are full of little clues. They can tell you what diet a person had, childhood injuries or illnesses written in the marrow of a leg. Puberty blossoms in the pelvis, growth spurts in the fibula and femur.   
Flared pelvises are for babies, the woman says, and does anyone know how to date bone fragments?  
You focus on how the guide witters on about the development of humanity and how bone black paint is made with charred bones, because it's infinitely better than dwelling on the wideness of your own hips, even in death.   
\--  
You've got killer cheekbones, Finbar observes, but he squints and adds, "I thought your jaw would be squarer, dude," and that kills any good mood for the afternoon. Square jaws are Nature's biological way of advertising men as good mates, free of illness and strong and all these things add up to 'attractive', only you've always been a freak of nature, an abomination, even before Serpine.   
When you wake up on the cold wet riverbank you think how lucky you are, all things considered.   
  
When you put on the armour, conceal yourself, it's already second nature. Hide your shape, hide your face, hide your skull, hide who you are. It's all the same, really. The armour is decidedly sexless and the helmet warps your voice. It's matte black. No decorations, no swirls, no snarling boar's heads or devil's masks. Unassuming, but deadly. A childhood, a lifetime's worth of tuition about pattern and texture and colour and /how things look/ has rather soured you on aesthetics. Function is always valued over form, in the end.   
\--  
Afterward, after Vile dies and you wake up, after the War, you decide you want to be a detective, because they're the good guys. Every day you wear a fresh, sharp dark suit is a victory. You won, because vengeful gods would have obliterated tailors. You won, because Vile would have flattened Saville Row for sport. You won, because no one says you should be wearing dresses.   
\--  
One day Gordon squints at you patching yourself up after yet another fight and asks if your ribcage is yours or if you didn't pick up the skull and chest in a two-for-one deal, and you feel your non-existent blood run cold.   
They're original, if that's what you mean, you answer, and he asks if you had a hormone disorder when you were alive.   
Yes, you did. People were rather ignorant about it back then, of course, but it's ceased to matter now anyway.  



	4. Fandom Seduction

**"China writes Valduggery fic."**

**[Rating: G, warnings none, Valduggery, DB canon compliant]**

"Skulduggery lifted her up, high in the air, and suddenly they were flying. The city was left far beneath them, as was the church, and Valkyrie's white dress flapped around her ankles. She shrieked in high spirits, and laughed, and wrapped her arms tenderly around his neck and rested her head by his as they flew."  
  
China paused, and sat back at her desk. Was it too much? Of course, her last piece of fiction, fanciful though it was, had been met with rave reviews by the set of people on the web that read them. China would have hidden behind false modesty and insisted to her fast growing readership that it was merely the vacuum of writers that had catapulted her to the small but satisfying heights of 'fandom' fame, but she was hiding behind a screen and didn't see the need to conceal herself any more.  
  
It had, to start with, been an experiment. China so rarely got to deal with people, certain that her charm was not colouring their opinion of her (postal and telephone communication being the only ready options) and after months having gone by without having seen either the object of her past affections or his... Whatever she was, China felt that she definitely deserved to indulge her petty fantasies. A week later at the most sumptuously-furnished mortal hotel China could book at short notice and her nails were silk-smooth half moons, her skin was even more supple than usual, the spa's delight's had been exhausted and her laptop was metaphorically bulging with 'fic'.  
  
China decided that the latest installment in her 'WIP drabble' series (she rather liked the codes and annotated names for things that these people used, as it reminded her of the old days as a covert double agent), featuring a thirty-six-part piece dealing with the engagement party, wedding, honeymoon, subsequent anniversaries and romantic holidays spent beating up bad guys - titled 'A Fated Romance in Three Score Parts (please read and review)' - was perfect just the way she was.  
  
China clicked 'Post' with a smug smile.  



	5. Char

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oneshot torture, set sometime between DB and LSODM. I posted this ages ago to the Skulduggery fanforums, so I'm not sure of the context! Valkyrie dies, and Skulduggery takes it out on the unlucky assassin. WARNINGS FOR: torture and death, obviously.

Valkyrie lay dead, eyes already clouding, blood around her mouth. The rest of her body lay a few feet away from her head, but it wasn't recognisable.  
Skulduggery barely had time to register what had happened when the voice of Thomasina Dirge whispered by his phantom ear, "I'm so sorry", and she dematerialised into the grey smoke that had caught them unawares and left them defenceless until it was too late.  
He couldn't let her get away.  
Skulduggery created an air bubble around the air in the room, tightened it, condensed it until there was a spinning globe of grey air no bigger than his hand. He could have just flattened it, squeezed it further or frozen it, but a swift death wasn't enough for the assassin who'd killed Valkyrie.  
The smoke started to darken, heavy as the assassin tried to rematerialise.  
He let it go and the small, unassuming American mage who'd led them here stood, her vaguely lined face and kind eyes aching to be obliterated, Washington Sanctuary’s uniform neat and modest. Before she could disappear again he pushed and all the air in the wall rushed toward the nearest wall. Caught unawares, the woman fell awkwardly. He hoped she hadn't broken any bones. He wanted to do that.

It was easy, so easy, to keep his left hand splayed whilst Dirge struggled, like the insect she was, vermin, whilst Skulduggery cooled the air around his right until it was wreathed with vapour and rimed with ice. Dirge had stopped trying to push against the invisible pressure and lay, vertical, breathing shallowly, hands pinned and mousy hair in disarray.   
Skulduggery rotated his right hand, winding supercooled air this way and that like candy floss until the ice crystals were thick on bone and Dirge seemed to notice what was going to happen. She tried to move her left arm, awkwardly folded by her neck, and the tendons in her neck strained as she tried to move out of the way, but Skulduggery wasn't one of the most powerful Elementals up and walking without knowing things that were finally becoming useful.  
"Who paid you," he asked, tones low and measured, clipped and precise. The words sounded like they'd come from an answering machine.  
Dirge gargled incoherently. His foot flashed out, kicking her in the ribs.  
"Speak up," he commanded, in the same voice.  
She was shaking already, but eventually she managed to cough, lick her lips.  
"S-sanctuary. I'm sorry. So sorry. It was a jo-"  
Skulduggery brought his hand to her face, let her feel the cold burn her even with his bones centimetres away.  
"Sorry, are you?"  
Dirge's eyes were rolling in her sockets, wildly trying to focus, but she managed to nod. "Yes."  
Skulduggery echoed her, posture jaunty. He tutted. "Well, Thomasina- I hope I can call you that-"  
He pressed his index to her cheek and the ice fire ignited her nerve endings, pain burrowing into her bones, and she whined-  
"Did no one tell you," he dragged the index finger, down, across, down again, "That actions speak louder that words?" The jagged S on her face seemed to smoke and she'd bitten her lip bloody to avoid the pain. Blood welled, stark against the bruised and dying skin. Skulduggery removed his hand, shook the ice off, and stood up. He took the hand still straining against him, tender as a lover, inspecting it.  
"Sorry?"  
Dirge's eyes rolled up in her head. He snapped the bones in her hand to get her attention. "Sorry?" he roared at her, then shrugged, stood. "Do you know how many letters are in the word sorry?"  
In front of him, Thomasina's hands shook violently and she panted. "counting beyond you at the moment? It's 5 letters. And look, you have five digits on your hand. What if I just-" he snapped the remaining fingers in quick succession- "Ah. Yes. That was rather more satisfying than I'd expected. Are you really sorry, now, Miss Dirge? Can you feel the remorse? Perhaps shock is setting in. What would you do if gravity wasn't over three times its usual, I wonder? I suppose we won't find out. Pity."  
He took her other hand, snapped the other fingers. "S, O, R, R, Y. How does remorse feel to you, you creature? You’re unfit to walk on this Earth and I should know, because so am I. You’re worse than I am, you know that - I’m Lord Vile. How does that feel? The only reason Vile isn’t here right now is because Vile can’t tell how wonderful this is. Cathartic.”  
He dropped her right hand and it was immediately sucked back, falling hard onto her chest. Finally, Dirge screamed. It wasn’t long enough for Skulduggery’s tastes, but at least it was a start. He lifted his right hand again and this time the air seemed to melt, ice popping as it boiled instantly and heat waving the light until a corona of blue lengthened and whitened to an aura of fire. He brought his hand back to the exposed meat of her shoulder and dragged his finger like a heavy pencil deep and thick until she bucked and screamed more, the smell of burnt keratin and sizzling fat heavy on the air.   
He cocked his head to one side. “Interesting. You can’t move far- it’s like you’re in amber. Or a butterfly on a shadowbox.” He pressed deeper and Dirge’s screams changed in pitch.  
“You sound like a kettle. Shut up. Shut up and listen, because I’m going to pin you like the worthless specimen you are.”  
Dirge’s screams choked off abruptly as Skulduggery gestured impatiently and her eyes bulged, unable to breathe or make a sound.  
Skulduggery grunted and pointed toward her again and she convulsed, a last ditch attempt to escape, but he was gesturing past her toward the shadows on the wall and to Dirge’s horror, they bulged toward him. The small pool of shadows rippled and burst free from the wall to collect into Skulduggery’s hand, then split into four spikes that drove into her forearms and calves. Despite the lack of air she seemed to vibrate in agony. Skulduggery finally closed his left hand into a fist and relieved the pressure. Dirge screamed again and sagged, but the thick black spikes held. He brought out his gun, emptied a bullet out from its chamber. He levitated it in front of her wildly rolling eyes and rubbed his fingerbones together, making the bullet move faster and faster until it melted into a ball and Dirge watched splayed, hypnotised by the spinning grey. It spread midair and rained onto Dirge’s torso and she screamed again, this time raw and guttural, the molten metal smoking and pinching her flesh until it ripped as it contracted. Skulduggery twitched his fingers and the metal flowed back, leaving sore upon smoking sore. The burning smell seemed to hit Dirge again and she gagged, bile coming from her throat. When it hit her savaged lips and open skin she squealed and was silent, coughing and trying to breathe. Skulduggery formed the metal into a blade and dragged it from Dirge’s chin to her solar plexus and she keened, too tired to do anything other than stretch away from the cold blade and the man wielding it. Her skin was rivuleted with sweat, burnt and bleeding and cracked, and the blade scored line upon line until she was reduced to opening and closing her mouth, convulsing away from the blade again and again until her flesh tore at the spikes and she fell at last unconcious.

Skulduggery boiled her blood in her veins and walked away.


End file.
